title: Marine water quality monitoring: a review.
abstract: Marine water quality monitoring is performed for compliance with regulatory issues, trend detection, model validation and assessment of the effectiveness of adopted policies. As the end users are managers and policy makers, the objectives should be of practical interest and the answers should reduce the uncertainty concerning environmental impact, supporting planning and decision making. Simple and clearcut answers on environmental issues require synthesis of the field information using statistics, simulation models and multiple criteria analysis (MCA). Statistics is easy to apply whereas simulation models enable researchers to forecast future trends as well as test different scenarios. MCA allows the co-estimation of socio-economic variables providing a compromise between scientists' and policy makers' priorities. In addition, stakeholders and the public have the right to know and participate. This article reviews marine water quality monitoring principles, design and data analysis procedures. A brief review of international conventions of regional seas is also included.
authors.affiliation: Department of Marine Sciences, School of the Environment, University of the Aegean, Mytilene 81100, Greece.
authors.forename: Michael
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Karydis
authors.forename: Dimitra
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Kitsiou
mesh_terms: D017753:Ecosystem; D004784:Environmental Monitoring / Q000379:methods*; D009792:Oceans and Seas; D012623:Seawater / Q000737:chemistry*; D014873:Water Pollutants / Q000032:analysis*; D014876:Water Pollution / Q000706:statistics & numerical data
chemical_list: D014873:Water Pollutants
keywords: Marine conventions; Marine governance; Marine pollution; Sea protection